Inside the Secret World of Data Crunchers Who Helped Obama Win — “The cave” at President Obama's Election headquarters in Chicago — In late spring, the backroom number crunchers who had powered Barack Obama's campaign to victory noticed that George Clooney had an almost gravitational tug on West Coast females ages 40 to 49.

Apple out of China's top five smartphone list in Q3 — Coolpad smartphones took third place in market share for China, according to Canalys — Apple dropped out of the top five list in China's smartphone market for the third quarter, as local handset vendors saw their shipments surge …

7,000 Starbucks Locations Added to the Square Wallet — Starbucks is now accepting Square's mobile payment application at roughly 7,000 of its stores as part of a wide-ranging agreement between the two companies. — The roll out is right on schedule, coming just three months after the partnership was announced in August.

MasterCard rolls out credit card with display and keypad — The next-generation 2-in-1 card features an embedded LCD display and touch-sensitive buttons for generating one-time passwords. — Next time you get a new card from your bank, don't be surprised if it has a keypad and an LCD on it.

Bolstering our infrastructure — Last night, the world tuned in to Twitter to share the election results as U.S. voters chose a president and settled many other campaigns. Throughout the day, people sent more than 31 million election-related Tweets (which contained certain key terms and relevant hashtags).

The Narcissism Of Minor Silicon Valley Differences — There's a prevalent myth in Silicon Valley, the myth that people aren't snobs here. This isn't true. A sort of reverse/meta-snobbery exists here, mostly intellectual in its nature, and the line between the alphas and the betas is extremely clear cut for those who can see it.

Hurricane Sandy Proved How Hard It Is to Break the Internet — All the damage to the communications infrastructure brought on by Hurricane Sandy is sure giving the people who keep track of the technical underpinnings of the Internet a lot of fodder to see how well things do and don't work in real-world situations.

Apple Granted Patent for Original iPad Design — Apple was granted a design patent for the original iPad Tuesday. Image: USPTO — Can you patent a rectangle with rounded corners? Absolutely. And Apple has done it again. On Tuesday, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office granted …

Sprint updates Samsung Galaxy Note II with Multi-Window feature — Multi-Window is a key feature for the Samsung Galaxy Note II because it adds split-screen functionality to the device's 5.5-inch display — allowing you to run two apps at the same time — but unfortunately it has been noticeably absent on the phone's US versions.

Apple's Eddy Cue joins Ferrari board of directors — Eddy Cue, Apple's head of Internet software and services, has joined the Ferrari board of directors, in a move that could hint that Apple is interested in moving into users' vehicles. — Ferrari announced in a statement on Wednesday that Cue has joined its board.

Egyptian Prosecutor Orders a Ban on Internet Porn — Censorship circumvention software is about to become very popular in Egypt. On Wednesday, the country's Prosecutor General, Abdel Maguid Mahmoud, ordered government ministries to enforce a ban on pornographic websites …

Walk in a Mall, Receive a Mobile Coupon — Smart online shoppers always search the Web for a coupon before they make a purchase. RetailMeNot, one of the leading coupon Web sites, is also trying to offer coupons for mall shoppers via their cellphones. — The idea is the same as the paper coupons …